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Friday, October 30, 2015

This morning I turned on my computer and saw this headline: Five Unexpected Reasons Your Head is Killing You. It turns out it was an article in Women’s Health
about headaches, but I refused to let that stop me from coming up with my own
list. Here it is.

Five Unexpected Reasons Your Head is Killing You

1)Remember that time you looked in the mirror and
complained about the weird shape of your head?
Your head does.

2)What
about that mullet haircut you got in the 80s?
In a way, you’ve got it coming.

3)Your head
is curious about what it’s like to kill a person.

4)Oh. So, you don’t want your head to kill
you? You should have thought about that
before you started seeing that other head!

5)It’s
doing it for the money. In retrospect,
maybe it was a mistake to name your head as a beneficiary of your life
insurance policy.

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Louella sat at the head of the hotel bed. Her feet on the
floor, she hunched into the light of the bedside lamp.Her finger
circled the face of the telephone until she located the zero. She spun the dial and waited until she heard
the voice of the operator. “I’d like to
place a collect call, please” she said.
A minute later, Lydia was on the other end of the line.

“It’s not
working out,” Louella said in a shaking voice.

“You just
started,” Lydia said. She sounded calm, relaxed, and distant. Like she was reading in bed.

“I know,
but it isn’t what I thought it would be,” Louella said. She twisted the telephone cord around her
wrist.

“Nothing
is.”

“I just
need your support right now, I guess.”
She plucked a loose string out of the bedspread and laid it on the
bedside table at the base of the lamp.

“I am
supporting you,” Lydia said. “If you
want to come on home you can, but you owe it to yourself to at least explore
the possibility…”

“I know,
but the people here…”

“What
people? The lawyer?”

“Well, yes,
Melvin thinks he’s the next Paul Newman, but it’s not just him. It’s everybody. I can almost see their minds calculating new
ways to exploit my being here.”

“How?”
Lydia asked. “You aren’t the type to
throw money around.”

“They don't know that. They think I’m the free money dispensary.
Either that or they think I’m going to write them into my book, and
somehow that will somehow transform them into an international celebrity.”

“Like
who? Oliver Twist?”

Louella
kicked off her shoes. “Exactly. There is no basis in reality. Most of the people in this county have never
even read a book, but everywhere I go, whether it’s in the field doing research
or at the mayor’s dinner party, everyone thinks I can make their lives more
glamorous through the magic of typing.”
She lifted her feet unto the bed and lay down, facing the telephone. “It’s ridiculous.”

“Why would
anyone want to be famous in the first place?” Lydia asked.

“Everyone
pestering you for autographs,” Louella said, “as if your name on a piece of
paper carried in value. What do they
even do with them?”

“Keep them
in a scrapbook maybe?”

“Or on a
bookshelf,” Louella said, “next to the other books they’ve never read.”

“It’s just
something people do,” said Lydia.

“Why do
they think it would be nice to be recognized all the time, to never be able
to walk down the street in public without having some stranger accost them, to
never be able to sit in a coffee house and chat with a friend without being
interrupted, and to have their anonymity and privacy stripped away for the amusement
of people who, when it comes down to it, don’t care a fig about them?”

“Oh, Honey,
I think you’re just homesick.”

Louella
turned on her other side, away from the phone.
“Well yes, I suppose so. Don’t
you miss me?”

“Of course
I do.”

“But you
don’t want me to come home.”

“Of course
I want you to come home, but you just got started. You need to see where this takes you.”

“This afternoon
it’s taking me to meet a convicted murderer.”

“You’re
going to a jail?” Lydia asked.

“No, a
funeral home.” Louella imagined a
question mark appearing over Lydia’s head.
“He got early release for good behavior.”

“Is Jim
going with you?”

“No, he has
to work.”

“What about
Melvin?”

“It’s just
going to be little old me.” Louella
smiled. “Why,” she asked. “Are you worried about me?”

“No,” Lydia laughed. “I’m worried about him.”

* * *

Louella
entered the lobby of the funeral home and padded across dark blue carpet in
tennis shoes that sank into its thickness.
A large silent man sat on a stool behind the counter, looking as if he’d
rather be some place else.

“Good
morning,” Louella said.

The man
behind the counter offered a blank, if not overtly menacing stare, but said
nothing.

“I have an
appointment to meet with the funeral director, Mr. Johnson.”

At last,
the man stood up and turned his back to Louella. “This way,” he said in a bored tone of voice. He led her down a darkened hallway to a conference
area, where he left her in one of six foldout metal chairs situated around a
long oak table in the center of the room.

The room
held a distinct odor. Formaldehyde
maybe. The floor was covered in the same
blue carpet as the lobby. The walls were
completely bare. Not even a painting of
Jesus. Off to one corner was a
chest-high, elbow-shaped bar.

“That’s
odd,” Louella muttered to herself. She
stood and went over and peered behind the bar.
She found it stocked with an assortment of liquor bottles including
bourbon, gin, vodka, vermouth…

“Can I pour
you a drink?”

Louella
turned suddenly, holding her hand to heart.

“Sorry, I
didn’t mean to startle you.” A man stood
across the table from her, a smile affixed to his face. He appeared to be in his forties or early
fifties. He had patches of gray in his
hair. He was about six feet tall, clean
shaven, and dressed in a rumpled black suit.
The smile told her he was the funeral director.

“Mr.
Johnson, I presume.”

Ernie came
came around the table holding out his hand.
“And you must be Ms. Harper. I am
so excited to have you here.”

Louella
took his hand cordially. “I suppose it’s
nice to be wanted.”

Ernie
motioned for her to sit. “Did you want
that drink?”

“I couldn’t
possibly,” Louella said. “It’s much too
early for me. Ask me again in five
minutes.”

Ernie threw
his head back as if to laugh, but no sound came from his throat. “We’ll talk then,” he said. He took a seat at the head of the table. Louella sat to his left. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

“Well,”
Louella began. She opened the satchel
resting on her lap, and removed a legal pad.
“I’m in town researching a book about a man you may know.” She placed the pad and a pencil on the table
in front of her.

“I know why
you’re here, Ms. Harper, and I’d love to help you.”

“You would?”

“Yes, of course," Ernie said. "I knew the Reverend quite well. As well as anyone could have known him. In fact, due to the nature of my business, I
know just about everyone in town. I’m
kind of a lightning rod for the community.”

“Is that
how you would describe yourself?”

“Ask anyone
in town,” Ernie said. “I’ll introduce
you to the Reverend’s wife Cassandra. That’s
his third wife. I knew his other wives
too—I buried them—and I know the rest of the family. Now, these are people who might not be open
to questions from outsiders, but they’ll talk to you if I tell them to.”

“Would
they?”

“Oh,
yes. And I would be happy to facilitate
meetings with all of them… for a consideration.”

Louella
eyed the man for a few seconds after he finished speaking. She picked up her pencil and began tapping
the pad with the eraser. “How is it that
you have so much control that you can… facilitate all these meetings?”

“As I
explained, my business allows me to meet a diverse group of individuals, and,
well, the Reverend’s… activities… all seemed to require my services.”

Again,
Louella stared at him for a few seconds after he completed his sentence. “If you don’t mind me asking, when you refer
to your business, are you talking about the mortuary or the criminal
organization you run?”

Ernie, who
had been leaning toward her, recoiled.
“I am a funeral director,” he said softly. “I’m a business man. A respected member of the community.”

“But you
also went to jail for murder?”

Instead of
looking at her, his face drifted off to the side.“I never committed any murder.”

“No, you
had someone else do it for you. I
understand you also distribute narcotics and run all of the illegal gambling
operations in town.”

“I think
someone has been telling you lies.”

“So you
weren’t connected to the shotgun murders in 1957 for which you were arrested,
but,” she flipped open the legal pad and examined a page of text, “the charges
were dropped after two of the witnesses became violently ill and had to be
rushed to the hospital.” She looked up
at Ernie. “They later refused to
testify.”

“You’re
making a very big mistake.”

“Mr.
Johnson,” Louella said. She looked him
right in the eyes. “You may run the
illegal activities in this town, but you don’t frighten me.”

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Kevin
handed the bottle to his guest and then continued pacing the viewing area in
the front of the chapel. After circling
around a floral arrangement, he ran his hand down top of the mahogany coffin.

J
Christopher slid down in the front pew.
He peeled the wrinkled paper bag back far enough to read the label of
the Tennessee mash. He nodded his
approval. A good brand was worth
drinking just about anywhere, even in a funeral home. He pulled off the bag and let it fall to the
floor.

“You
worked here a long time,” he said as he unscrewed the cap.

Kevin
nodded. “A good job is a hard to come
by.”

“Good
and job are two words that don’t go together.”
J Christopher said and then laughed at his own witticism. He took a long swig from the bottle and
winced at the taste. “Damn,” he said,
staring at the bottle as if it could unlock some mystery. He wiped his mouth with the back of his shirt
sleeve. He held the bottle out to his
host, but Kevin shook his head.

“No,”
he said. “I feel good.”

“It
ain’t about feeling good,” J Christopher said.
“It’s about feeling right.” He
took another long swig. “I’m starting to
feel right.” He let out a loud
cackle. “I ain’t there yet, but I’m
getting close.”

Kevin
flashed a set of square white teeth. “I
heard that,” he said. He backed up
against the coffin, pressed his palms against the lid for leverage, and then
hoisted himself into a sitting position on top.

Kevin
tilted his head toward the head of the coffin.
“He don’t mind. Besides, I like
it up here.”

J
Christopher’s face twisted. “You mean
there’s a body in there?”

Kevin
shrugged. “This is a funeral home.
What’d you expect?”

“Don’t
know,” said J Christopher. “But I’ve heard
some stories.”

“The
dead can’t hurt you.”

“I
wouldn’t be so sure,” J Christopher said.

“The
dead aren’t the ones you have to worry about,” Kevin said.

J
Christopher took another swig of mash. “I
heard your old boss got sent up to the state pen after a same-day
funeral.” He laughed again. “He tried to bury the evidence, but got
caught.”

“Naw,”
Kevin said, still smiling. “Ernie’s
okay.”

J
Christopher drained the rest of the bottle.
“If there’s one thing that man ain’t, it’s okay. He’s as bad as they come.” He gestured toward Kevin with the empty
bottle. “He’s the one you have to worry
about.”

“Ernie’s
got his fingers in a lot of pies, that’s all.
A funeral home is a handy thing to own when you got your finger in a lot
of pies.”

“Pies,
shit. You talk like you own it,” J
Christopher said. He dropped the empty
bottle on the pew beside him.

“I
don’t own it,” Kevin said, shaking his head.
“I never owned it. I just ran it
for him while he was away.”

“What
do you mean was?”

“Hello,
J.”

The
voice came from the doorway. All of the mirth
drained from J Christopher’s eyes as they dropped from Kevin to the casket in
front of him.

Kevin
hopped down and strolled to the back of the room. He greeted Ernie with a half handshake, half hug.

J
Christopher never turned around. He just
kept staring ahead at that mahogany casket.

Ernie
strolled to the front of the room, slid into the pew beside J Christopher. He picked up the empty liquor bottle.

“Still
like Jack Daniels, I see.”

J
Christopher looked down and away from Ernie.
His hands fidgeted in his lap. “When did you get out?” he asked after a long
pause.

“Sunday.”

Kevin
called from the back of the room. “J
Christopher was just telling me he couldn’t wait to see you again.”

“Is
that right?” Ernie put his arm around J Christopher, almost like a man
comforting a mother who has just lost a child. “Well, you can thank my lawyer then. You see, a life sentence don’t really mean
life anymore, and a 15-year sentence don’t mean you’ll do the whole
stretch. It’s the nature of our legal
system.”

For
the first time, J Christopher peaked at Ernie out of the corner of his eye.

Deputy
Sheriff Ford leaned against his cruiser and watched the paramedics load the
body. He shook a cigarette out of his
packet and used his elbow to shield the flame from the wind.

A
van pulled up behind him. The reporter,
Jim Easton, climbed down from the driver’s seat and walked up beside the deputy. “Morning,” he said

Ford
cranked the flint, but his Zippo was out of fluid. After ten more tries failed to ignite, he
pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and dropped it in his shirt pocket. He continued to roll the flint with the pad
of his thumb. “You’re out awfully
early.”

“What’s
going on?” Jim nodded to the two stretcher
bearers lifting a still figure out of a patch of yellow grass.

The
deputy stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. “Some nigger had too many and
wandered out into the cold and froze to death.”

“How
did he freeze?” Jim asked. “The low
temperature last night was 37.”

“Too
much to drink then. Either way, he
shouldn’t have been wandering the highway in the middle of the night.”

“Who
is it?”

“Who
is what?” asked the deputy.

“The
man who died.”

“The
deceased has not yet been identified.”

“You
mind if I take a look?” Jim asked.

“I
suppose it wouldn’t hurt him any.” The deputy sheriff cupped one hand over his
mouth and called out to the two paramedics.
They had the body lowered onto the ground to open the back door of the hearse. “You two bring him over here for a second.”

The
two paramedics looked at each other and then did as they were told. They carried the body over to the sheriff and
the other white man.

Even
on a windy morning, Jim detected the odor of liquor mixed with a pungent body
odor emanating from the stretcher. No
sheet covered the body, and so nothing hid the contorted expression brought on
by rigor mortis. Jim could barely stand
to look at the corpse, but Ford appeared to revel in the deceased man’s
apparent anger. “You had yourself a hard
night, didn’t you brother?” He asked the
body.

Jim
looked up at one of the two paramedics, both of whom stood waiting patiently.

“Hey
Kevin,” Jim said, looking up at the taller, more slender of the two attendants. “Got yourself a new partner?”

Kevin
grinned. “Yes sir.
This is Evan. He’s a new
hire.” The other man said nothing. He was a large man, maybe 6’4” and 300
pounds, and wore a blank expression.

Jim
forced himself to look at the dead man.
“Wait a second,” he said. “I know
this man.” He looked at Kevin. “Isn’t
that Christopher Baxter?”

Monday, October 5, 2015

In
1814, Andrew Jackson and an army of 2000 soldiers surrounded 1000 Creek
warriors fortified behind a horseshoe-shaped bend of the Tallapoosa River.

After
softening the defenses with cannon fire, Jackson ordered a bayonet charge that
drove the natives out of their defenses where they were slaughtered along the
banks.

The
next morning, Jackson’s men counted the bodies of over 550 “Red Sticks” and
estimated another 300 dead at the bottom of the river. Jackson lost 150 men.

Six
months later, Jackson defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans. Five years later, Alabama became a
state. Fourteen years later, Andrew
Jackson became president of the United States.

And
166 years later, Louella Harper stayed at a motel named the Horseshoe Bend a
short distance from the original battle site, at the edge of a town called
Jackson City, named not for Andrew Jackson but for an unrelated confederate
general with no connection to the area whatsoever.

The
motel was set up like a baseball diamond, with rooms along the perimeter of a
vast, well-manicured courtyard with a swimming pool at its center. A highway ran along one side while the other
three buildings guarded against the encroaching woods.

Louella
heard a knock at her door and opened it to find Melvin Little standing with a
young man who looked to be in his early twenties.

“Melvin,
if you keep showing up at my motel room, people will begin to talk.”

“Yes,
yes,” Melvin said. “Louella, this is an
associate of mine, Jimmy Easton. He
covered the Baxter story for the newspaper.”

“Well,
your offer of assistance is very kind,” Louella said. “I might just take you up on it, but before I
do, I have a few questions for you, Melvin.”

“You
know I’m always happy to help, Louella.”

Louella
disappeared into her room, leaving the door open. Melvin looked at Jim, who shrugged, and they
followed her inside.

The
bedside lamp was on, but the shades were drawn, and the only natural light
shone through the open door. The room
was neatly kept and the bed had been made, but papers and files were strewn
across the bedspread and stacked on top of the television. A rabbit ear antenna rested on the floor.

“I
was looking through the files Sheriff Ford gave me,” Louella said as she
shuffled through some papers. “I couldn’t
find anything about voodoo in any of the original reports.”

“Oh
everyone was always talking about that.
The colored people would cross to the other side of the street when the ‘Voodoo
Man’ came around. Isn’t that right, Jimmy?”

Jim
shrugged. “It’s a small town, Ms.
Harper. The rumors just sort of float
around.”

“I
suppose all will be revealed in time,” Louella said.

“Well,
I best be going,” Melvin said. “I’ll
leave you to it.”

Jim
looked at Louella. “Shall we go?”

A
few minutes later, Louella was riding in the passenger seat of Jim’s van. She clutched her purse in her lap.

“Did
you read about the story in the Montgomery papers?” Jim asked.

“This
story made national news,” Louella said.
“I read about it everywhere.”

“Did
you read any of the local coverage?”

“If
you’re asking me if I read any of your stories in the Sentinel, the answer is yes, and the coverage was much better than that
which appeared in the Atlanta Journal
or the New York Times.”

Jim’s
face turned red as he drove, but Louella could tell that he was pleased.

“Is
this to be a novel then?” he asked.

“I’ve
written a successful novel already, more successful than I ever could have imagined. I want to see what else I can do. This project is to be straight journalism of
the old-fashioned kind: just facts.”

“Facts
are sometimes hard to come by in this case,” Jim said.

“We
shall see.”

Jim
steered the van down a short dirt driveway leading to small one-story house. It was small, but well kept. The plank wood was painted white with red
trim and matching shutters on the windows.

“This
is the house of Evan Waverly, the Reverend’s next door neighbor.”

“Is
that the Reverend’s house?” Louella
asked, pointing through hole in the tree branches.

“That’s
it,” Jim said. “Just a regular little
house. You never would know to look at
it.”

“And
you think this neighbor will have something useful to say?”

“He’s
been telling everyone in town he does. I
thought he’d make a good first stop.”
Jim hopped out of the van. He ran
around the front to open the door for Louella, but she was already standing in
the red dirt and gravel, looking up at the front porch where a man sat rocking
in a swing.

“Mr.
Waverly,” Jim said. “This is Louella
Harper, the writer I was telling you about.”

With
her purse hanging from her elbow, Louella ascended the three steps to the porch
and held out her hand. “How do you do,
Mr. Waverly?”

The
man made no effort to take her hand. “Circumstances
have changed since the last time we talked, Jim. I can’t part with this story easily.”

Louella
slowly withdrew her hand.

“What
are you talking about Evan? This is
Louella Harper, probably the most famous author in the country. If you’ve got
something to say, this is the person to talk to.”

“I’m
holding out for the TV producer.” Waverly said.

“What
TV producer?”

“A
man from Hollywood called me two nights ago.
He said I could get seven grand for my story.” He turned to Louella. “Can you beat that offer?”

Louella
was already walking down the steps. “I
want the truth, Mr. Waverly. One never
has to pay for the truth. Good day to you.”

Jim
looked at the man and shook his head.
This trip had not gone the way he had expected.